She looked at him; her teeth unclenched: she said: "Can you?"
"Why yes, but my case is not so hard. They all envy me, of course."
The white, angry look left her face. She pulled one of his hands up to her mouth, and softly kissed it. "You're a dear, Charles."
He took her in his arms. "You mustn't do that," he said.
"I wanted to," she replied, turning her face up to his. "I always do what I want. Oh, but Charles, how odiously commonplace it is! I wish we had eloped instead!"
"That would have been worse - vulgar!"
"What I do is not vulgar!" she said snappishly.
"Exactly. So you didn't elope."
She moved away from him to cast herself into a chair by the fire. She thrust one bare foot in its golden sandal forward, and demanded: "How do you like my gilded toenails?"
"Very well indeed," he answered. "Is it a notion of your own?"